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Yesterday, we covered news that Philips would lock down its Hue smart lighting platform and block third-party compatibility. The news was not well-received by the community at large — especially given that Philips lighting products are significantly more expensive than its competitors. Its claims of needing to perform “continuous validation” on another company’s products were little more than an attempt to create a long-term licensing program to force competitors’ to raise their prices.

Now, Philips is walking back that decision, slightly more than 24 hours after it went public. Philips has released a comprehensive statement on the topic, which we’ve reprinted below:

“We recently upgraded the software for Philips Hue to ensure the best seamless connected lighting experience for our customers. This change was made in good faith. However, we under estimated the impact this would have on a small number of customers who use lights from other brands which could not be controlled by the Philips Hue software. In view of the sentiment expressed by our customers, we have decided to reverse the software upgrade so that lights from other brands continue to work as they did before with the Philips Hue system.

“We are working on the reversal of the upgrade and will shortly confirm when this will be available.

“Philips remains committed to providing our customers with the best possible connected lighting experience. That is why we launched the Friends of Hue partnership program to test and certify that products and platforms from other brands work seamlessly with Philips Hue. Customers using uncertified lights may continue to have the same incompatibility issues as before, such as lights not dimming to off, creating the right colors or scene experience.

“Philips welcomes other brands to join as Friends of Hue so that we can work together to ensure seamless and great lighting experiences.”

I stand by what I said yesterday, as far as Friends of Hue being a thinly veiled attempt to lock up higher pricing and market share. But I have to give Philips substantial credit for reversing this change. When Keurig announced that Keurig 2.0 would be a DRM product, tech authors and the company’s own customers warned that this would substantially impact how much they valued the hardware. Keurig ignored them, and its own sales have suffered as a result:

Keurig 2.0 debuted in the fall of 2014. Initial strong sales fell off a cliff as word spread.

Sales of pods have been down as well, though not as dramatically. Keurig brewing equipment fell off a cliff, and while pod sales account for much of its financials, those are down as well.

Kudos to Philips for not pushing forward with a plan that would harm users and limit cross-compatibility when the entire point of using Zigbee is to guarantee interoperability. We’ll keep an eye on whether the company actually follows through and let you know accordingly.

Tagged In

Philips was 1st to the market but was 3 years ago. It’s time to move on beyond the early adopters and price your bulbs sanely. A company Philips size should be able to sell the color bulbs for $35 and the whites for $15. Start selling 5pk 10pk & 20pk bulbs at discount.

In other news Zigbee announced the ratification of 3.0 which means going into 2016 the expectation is Zigbee products are interoperable.

Being price competitive is going to be important.

The Watson

Thats why they don’t make TVs and radios. Now its razors and light bulbs. I worked for them in my teen years, back when it was Phillips – Magnavox. They are sly and underhanded in everything, but swear thier shit don’t stink and believe it religiously. They somehow think the world is naive, but this thing called the Internet keeps telling them the truth!

gravitysystems

Wow. Great blog with good information on
Network technology.

BillBasham

This was planned all along, and it’s been done repeatedly by many vendors.

The goal of this was twofold. They get the message out that they are responsive to customer wishes, and they sow doubt in the minds of anyone contemplating buying a non-Phillips product.

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